It's Christmas in 2 day! I love this time of year, and I enjoy the preparations and lead up the the big day as much as the day itself. It's lovely seeing Christmas trees, lights and decorations everywhere, especially in the nighttime; it makes an otherwise dull time of year more cheerful and warm.
You know Christmas is around the corner when you eat your first mince pie; it's basically Christmas in an edible form, filled with sugar, spice and all things nice. So have you had your annual bite of mince pie yet? They are everywhere you look in the shops and I personally find it difficult to resist. Also how do you like to eat your mince pie? I love mine warm, if you give them a blast in the microwave for a few seconds just before eating they're absolutely gorgeous, and even better accompanied with cream/ ice-cream. The other day I bought some mince pie flavoured ice-cream being quite intrigued by the idea when I saw it, and I have to say that it was one of the best ice-creams I have had! It literally was mince pie in ice cream form, and if you find mice pies stodgy and heavy this is the perfect alternative so you don't miss out on this festive treat.
I've never made my own mince pies before but if I had know that they are this easy I probably would have. I think I have just started a new Christmas ritual for myself. It's so much more satisfying eating home made mince pies than the shop bought things; but I guess this is true for most stuff. An added bonus of making your own is that your kitchen will smell delicious when you bake the mince pies. Also you can have a lot of fun decorating them. I bought edible gold spray for food, and I've been itching to use it a.s.a.p, so this was the perfect opportunit and hopefully you don't think I went overboard with the spray; I think it adds a 'special' touch. But if you don't want too bee too fancy, just dust the pies with icing sugar and they will still look stunning. Why not share the mince pies you make, I handed some of mine out as presents, and I think they went down pretty well.
Preparation time: 1hr 15 mins
Makes: 12 medium sized mince pies with lids for half of them
Recipe:
Ingredients
1 411g jar of shop bought mincemeat (you can make your own if you have the time)
200g plain flour
100g cooled butter, cut into cubes
2 beaten eggs (1 for the pastry and one for the egg glaze
1tbsp icing sugar plus extra for decorating
gold food spray for decorating
Method
1. Rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar using your fingertips till the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add 1 beaten egg to the flour bit by bit as you mix to form a dough (you may not all of it). The dough is ready when it comes together and can form a ball without being too dry or too sticky. Or you can just add all the ingredients into a food mixer and let it do all the work.
3. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for a minimum of 30mins.
4. Preheat the oven to 200C or gas mark 6.
5. Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the pastry till it is around 3mm thick (the thickness of a pound coin). Cut out the bases for the mince pies using a round pastry cutter and place them onto the bottom of mini tart baking tins or cupcake holes in a cupcake tray. You can cut out lids for the mince pies too using a smaller pastry cutter or cut out stars to decorate mince pies without lids. Re roll any left over pastry.
7. Cover the mince pies with pastry lids. This recipe was only enough to cover half the mince pies with lids. Glaze the pastry with beaten egg, and using a knife/fork make small holes in the pastry to allow steam to escape.
8. Bake the mince pies in the oven for 10-15mins till golden brown. I baked the stars for the uncovered mince pies separately as I wanted to coat them with gold spray before adding to the mince pie, if you don't want to do this just bake everything together.
9. Allow the mince pies to cool. Then spray the pastry with edible gold spray and dust with icing sugar. Now add the golden stars to the uncovered mince pies.
10. Eat.
Ideas:
1. Use puff pastry instead of the sweet shortcrust pastry used in this recipe.
2. Make mince pie toasties with the left over mince meat.
Source:
Good Food Channel
A post by Fullest of Life
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